Arkansas to Increase ‘Conscience’ Protections, Add Telemed Ban
The men in the Arkansas legislature seemed really concerned with making sure people give birth if they’re having sex.
Sign the petition and read more about the Birth Control Bosses here.
Not Content With Strictest Abortion Law in the Country, Rapert Wants to Defund Planned Parenthood
The state senator has introduced a bill that would refuse state or federal funding to any entity that performs or even offers referrals for abortions, in a direct swing at the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics.
A 1979 clipping via Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles.
Angelenos: Planned Parenthood is having a foodie fundraiser tomorrow, March 7, 2013. Details here.
(via becauseiamawoman)
A federal district court in Arizona made it official this week and entered a permanent injunction that blocks a law designed to strip Planned Parenthood clinics in the state of funds by banning Medicaid funding for non-abortion health care provided by doctors and clinics that also perform abortions. Planned Parenthood Action Fund President Cecile Richards praised the victory in a statement: “Yet another court has said it is unacceptable for politicians to dictate where women can go for their health care, returning to women the ability to choose the health centers they trust for lifesaving cancer screenings, breast health exams, and birth control. Politicians in Arizona and across the country should recognize that they have no business inserting themselves in a woman’s personal health care decisions.”
Is Anti-Choice Colorado Group Encouraging Politicians to Lie About their Positions?
Written by Jason Salzman for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
New polling shows that 80 percent of likely voters are pro-choice, in the sense that they are pro-letting-women-decide-if-they-want-to-have-an-abortion. But they don’t necessarily want to be labeled “pro-choice.”
And half of the people who call themselves “pro-life,” the term traditionally used by folks seeking to ban abortion, are actually pro-choice, if you start digging into what they really think.
The poll, from Planned Parenthood, raises the question, what to do if you’re anti-abortion and you want to get elected?
Anti-choice activists in Colorado have designed ways for anti-choice candidates to run for office and mobilize support from anti-abortion voters, without disclosing to the wider public what they really think about abortion.
Here’s how they’re doing this.
Colorado Right to Life runs a blog stating whether federal and state candidates are “100 percent pro-life.” Last year’s determination was based on a nine-question candidate survey, which asked for yes-no responses to queries on personhood (which defines life as beginning at conception), state funding for abortion, and abortion regulations.
Texas Disables Problem-Riddled Health Provider Website But Still Has No Answers on Access to Care
Written by Andrea Grimes for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Last week, the Texas Health And Human Services Commission disabled the problem-riddled online provider search function on its Texas Women’s Health Program (TWHP) website, which has, for months, directed low-income women seeking pap smears and contraceptives to call endoscopy clinics and pediatric offices which do not offer these services.
Now, when women log on to TexasWomensHealth.org in search of a doctor, they’re directed to call a 1-800 number so that an operator can help them find one, a method that one HHSC employee testified in court has been completely effective.
“We’ve been able to find every single woman who calls a provider,” testified Michelle Harper, a policy advisor at the HHSC, during a January 11th hearing regarding Planned Parenthood’s most recent lawsuit filed over its exclusion from the new Texas Women’s Health Program. Texas state court judge Stephen Yelonosky ruled that day that, while he believes injury is being done to Texans who are no longer able to receive WHP care from Planned Parenthood, he could not grant the provider a temporary injunction that would allow it to remain in the program because of the low likelihood that Planned Parenthood would succeed at trial in the future.
Fiscal Conservatism, Texas Style? Texas Family Planning Program Now Serves Fewer Clients for More Money
Written by Andrea Grimes for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Texans are now getting far fewer family planning services at a higher cost than ever, according to documents submitted to the Department of State Health Services council this week. Just 75,160 low-income clients received publicly-funded family planning services in fiscal year 2012, compared to 211,980 in fiscal year 2010. That was before conservative Texas lawmakers slashed money-saving family planning funds in their 2011 legislative session.
That means Texas is spending more money — about $37 per person — to serve fewer than half the clients it saw two years ago.
This is fiscal conservatism? This is good money management?
This is Texas.
Ohio Legislature Seeks to Punish Women with Unconstitutional Bills During Lame Duck Session
Written by Robin Marty for RH Reality Check. This diary is cross-posted; commenters wishing to engage directly with the author should do so at the original post.
Just as promised, a “compromise” may have been reached between Ohio’s anti-choice activist groups Ohio Right to Life and Faith2Action on the long blocked “heartbeat ban” that would make abortion illegal from the moment an embryonic heartbeat can be detected.
That compromise? Make it even more restrictive.
The “heartbeat ban” was always intended to be unconstitutional. The extreme group Faith2Action proposed it as a way to invoke a challenge to Roe v. Wade, allowing a possibility for the case to work its way through the court systems and end up in front of the Supreme Court. Ohio Right to Life, on the other hand, urged caution, worried that if the case made it all the way up the ladder, Roe would be reaffirmed rather than overturned.
